Team

Peter Costello

Peter Costello (Chairman) has a background as a lawyer. He was Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia from March 1996 to December 2007, serving a record term in that office.

He brought down 12 Federal Budgets, including 10 surpluses. During his time as Treasurer Australia’s sovereign debt credit rating was upgraded twice to AAA.

Mr Costello administered Corporations Law and established the Takeovers Panel. He was responsible for Foreign Investment Policy and the Foreign Investment Review Board. He was responsible for Competition Policy and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Since leaving politics in 2009 he has served on a number of Boards including as Chairman of the Independent Advisory Board of the World Bank. He has been an adviser on some of Australia’s major M&A transactions.

Jonathan Epstein

Jonathan Epstein

Jonathan Epstein (Managing Director) has a strong background in economics and finance.

Jonathan was recently employed as a Senior Investment Analyst at the Future Fund – Australia’s sovereign fund. In that role he worked in the property and infrastructure investment teams on a number of large scale domestic and global transactions as well as a significant involvement in the design and implementation of the Fund’s agriculture strategy.

Jonathan was also a senior adviser to the Federal Treasurer, providing advice on macroeconomic and financial market conditions domestically and globally as well as key policy areas such as infrastructure, energy, telecommunications and regulation framework.

Jonathan has also established and co-founded ECG Advisory Solutions, a leading consulting firm specialising in government relations and corporate strategy. ECG Advisory Solutions has built a strong client base (top 100 ASX companies) across the industrial spectrum, including, banking, retail, property, mining, health, energy, and infrastructure – both domestic and global.

David Gazard

David Gazard (Director) started his career in the Canberra Press Gallery covering market moving news for real-time financial newswires. He reported on equities, interest rates and market moving political news.

David Gazard

He also worked for News Ltd as an economic reporter with his copy syndicated across four daily newspapers before working for Prime Minister Hon John Howard as a senior media adviser.

He worked as a political adviser for Prime Minister Tony Abbott when he was Health Minister and as a political adviser to former Commonwealth Treasurer, Hon Peter Costello AC.

David headed up government relations for Westpac Banking Corporation, one of Australia’s largest retail banks.

He has broad and deep political and business networks, gained from close to 20 years in and around Australian politics at a state and federal level. He is skilled in media liaison and is a regular political commentator on ABC and Sky TV.